According to mobiThinking, In 2009 there were over 5.3 billion mobile subscribers and over half a billion had a smartphone. In 2011, 85% of those mobile subscribers will have web-enabled smartphones. That’s a huge spike in web-enabled mobile users. Although many companies have adopted some of the latest trends of smartphones, there are 3 things that they have not fully capitalized to their full potential. These 3 areas of opportunity can easily help your business adopt to the fast-paced mobile world and improve your customer’s experience:

NFC capabilities: Get enrolled now!

Most of all retailers and small business have a merchant Point of Sale machine that handle debit and credit card transactions, and now is the time for those machines to get upgraded to handle the onslaught of NFC enabled mobile phones that will be soon shipping within the next 2 years. Be ahead of the curve and get signed up or upgrade soon. This will not only give you a competitive advantage over other retailers but it will keep customer satisfaction high, as many consumers will be eager to try this new form of payment.

Get Proactively Involved with E-Coupons and Rewards.

Many consumers are shifting their shopping from actual stores to online retailers like Amazon or eBay, and they do so because they have great confidence that they will get a better deal online then they would at the store. Therefore, when they’re met with a tempting deal at a store, they hesitate and choose to look it up and buy it online. Actively applying discounts and reward points will give that customer an emotional sensation to buy now, rather then later, will help your business win that sale immediately. E-Coupons and rewards can be used in conjunction with NFC enabled phones and apply automatic discounts and reward points when an enabled NFC phone is used as form of payment at the register. Such a feature is being rolled out with Google’s own offering of Google wallet and I recommend you take immediate action to differentiate yourself before it becomes the norm. Remember be proactive, not reactive. Customers always love to be rewarded without having to chase down discounts.

Compatible Websites: Make your website compatible to mobile web browsers.

Many of the huge retailers have already jumped on board with creating specific mobile applications pertaining to their company for the two larges phone ecosystems: Android and the iPhone. However, not everyone has an Android or an iPhone so creating many different types of applications for each specific mobile operating system can be expensive and time consuming, especially for smaller businesses. In addition, with the large pool of applications between Android and iPhone, only 1 of 4 applications downloaded actually get used. Therefore, when creating website for your company, make sure that your site is mobile browser friendly. Make things simple and accessible to customers without having them to zoom in on a page that’s meant for your laptop on a small 4 inch portable screen. In addition, if your website requires the user to fill out a form — for example loan applications — please make it mobile friendly. I can’t tell you how many times I started to fill out a form on my phone but just quit because it was just too much work.

Some of these tips sound like common sense but it will make you wonder why it isn’t a uniform standard across many retailers and companies. The truth is that the most of these initiatives will eventually become standard, but the key to your business is to be ahead of the curve and give your customer that friendly mobile experience and satisfaction they haven’t felt anywhere else.

Source: mobiThinking

Think about the last time you received excellent customer service.  We may get ok service, maybe good service and rarely great service, but excellent customer service, that is hard to come by.

Most the time we are helped by people who either:

• Just want to make a sale – and will do anything to get there
• Don’t care – have a lackluster approach to their job/goals
• Don’t know how to relate to their customer – or don’t care too

For a business that is dangerous.  How many times are you apt to go back to a business that provided that type of service?  I know that I wouldn’t.  So what can we do to ensure that our customers don’t receive bad customer service but instead get excellent customer service?  It can be done in these easy steps:

• Know your customer – their needs/goals/desires
• Listen to your customer – let them talk the majority of the time
• Be genuine with your customer – they know when your not being real
• Become your customer – put yourself in their shoes/relate to them

By doing those steps it shows our customers that we are interested in what they want, that we value them and that we appreciate their business. When we take the time to develop that customer relationship it will in turn make loyal customers that will equate to more sales for your business!  Remember, without our customers our businesses would not be successful.  So make it an aim to give EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Sam Valenzuela, President of LeadPile

The demand to generate quality leads is a constant challenge for marketers. While 74% of marketers see generating high quality leads as their number one business challenge, LeadPile offers their customers just that–the highest quality leads. LeadPile is the premier online exclusive lead generation marketplace, and their commitment to quality and trust has earned them the title of one of the fastest growing companies in America.

LeadPile was created after recognizing a number of unfulfilled lead gen needs in the B2B sector, including the challenge of generating quality leads. By building their marketplace around balancing the needs of both lead buyers and sellers, LeadPile has grown into the largest online exclusive lead marketplace in the industry. Inc. Magazine has now ranked LeadPile as one of the fastest growing companies for a third consecutive year.

Currently lead gen is a top priority for 60% of marketers, which makes finding quality leads increasingly important. “Providing quality leads for our customers sits at the core of our vision,” said Sam Valenzuela, President of LeadPile. “A key ongoing objective is to develop processes that strengthen the quality of leads to bring real economic value to our clients.”

The future of lead quality lies within increasingly sophisticated segmentation, targeting and conversions.  LeadPile stands at the forefront of the lead gen industry by adapting marketplace features to meet changing market demands. Ultimately, it is the forward thinking approach to lead gen challenges that will continue to advance LeadPile as a leader in the industry.

ABOUT LEADPILE

LeadPile is the premier online lead marketplace for the B2B sector. LeadPile offers quality leads to buyers and sellers on a secure and centralized platform. Since 2009, Inc. Magazine has ranked LeadPile as one of the fastest growing companies in America. For more information about LeadPile, please visit LeadPile.com.

Do you own a Smartphone? Email, text, IM clients/ colleuges from anywhere at anytime? Check out these 8 rules to Smartphone etiquette and see how badly you are misbehaving.

1. Be considerate: If you are contacting a client after hours ask if they are free to talk. Just because your friends may immediately respond to IM’s or texts doesn’t mean your client wants to. Have the same expectations as you would from an email correspondence.

2. Remember the concept of “business hours”: Follow the weekday 7am-9pm rule. Not everyone wants to speak to you late night or on weekends, you must respect that.

3. Only contact the people you talk to regularly: Texting a colleague that sits next to you is totally acceptable. Texting a client you rarely speak to is not.

4. Put your phone away during face-to-face meetings: There is nothing more annoying then having a conversation with someone who is constantly checking their cell phone. If you can’t focus during a 30min meeting what kind of impression does that give your potential clients.

5. Texts and IMs should be reserved for simple, non-critical topics: If your texts is longer then a sentence or requires deeper communication send an email or schedule a call.

6. Be wary of abbreviations and emoticons: Be aware of whom you are texting, if you would not include LOL or a smiley face in an email to them why would you via text message.

7. Never send sensitive information: Hackers can easily obtain this information and cause severe damage.

8. Stay professional: Be sure to still use spell check and write professionally via text as you would by email. Remember you are still conducting business.

Last year, 57 million people hit the stores for Black Friday and even

more are expected to show up this year. The day following Thanksgiving has become one of the most popular times of the year for retailers to offer large discounts to customers, making about a third of retailer’s sales for the year. About 31 percent of households are predicted to shop on Black Friday.

Stores like Walmart will be selling high-definition TVs for under $200 and cameras for around $60 offering prices that are largely discounted compared to the rest of the year. The economy’s current state is also expected to make an impact on the number of people looking for lower prices.

Remember to follow up with past contacts, even if you are not currently doing business with them. Business needs and developments change, so you never know what opportunities you might be missing with the people you already know.

In this economy consumers are being more conscientious of their spending habits.
Coupon sites are becoming more and more popular. Living in Los Angeles I know of four that I check regularly, Groupon being one of them. Groupon launched in November of 2008 and features daily deals for over 85 US cities. Most deals are at least 50% off, ranging from restaurants to clothing stores to different outdoor/indoor activities.

Here are some interesting facts about Groupon and their customers.

- Groupon has 9.1 million members
- They have sold over 8.9 million coupons
- 97% of the businesses that participate ask to be featured again
- 68% are between 18-34 years old
- 50% have a bachelor’s degree
- 49% are single
- 77% are women
- 75% have fill-time jobs
- 29% annual income is over $100,000

How many of you have used Groupon? What are your thoughts on coupon sites?

Times must be tough if one of the world’s largest retailers is planning on offering small business loans. MSNBC is reporting that Wal-Mart is teaming up with a lender to offer small business loans to some of our nation’s businesses. So, is the motive behind something like this to promote businesses to spend money at their stores? If that is in fact the case, is that really a bad idea?
The retail giant is reporting that in a recent survey, they conducted with their business clients, a large percentage of them were rejected for business loans. Therefore, in a effort to capitalize on these “unhelped” businesses, Wal-Mart teamed up with Superior Financial Group to offer these businesses a small business loan.
Good idea or not? If our “traditional” banks are not lending to consumers and businesses, is it really a conflict of interest to have a retail giant want to jump in and help? There seems to be no strings attached for these businesses and being required to only shop at Wal-Mart stores, however they are offering a discount on the Sam’s Club membership. Sounds like a good idea to me……

Industry blogs and forums are a great place to potentially bring on new business.
There is nothing better than having someone who believes in your services refer people over that they see as a good fit.
Keep your eyes open to this sort of situation because it could really help to build your business.

Many of you may be thinking that I am crazy saying that there are benefits to the H1N1 virus. Getting the flu may not be fun, but if you are are in the business of household personal care items, you could not be happier. Brands such as Johnson & Johnson have been seeing a large increase in sales on many of their germ killing products. Purell hand sanitizer, Clorox, and cold medicine are just a few of their germ products that people are reaching to. Just looking around the office I can see all three of the above products with people using them constantly. With that being said, it comes to no surprise that in October along with Johnson & Johnson saw at 10.7% sales increase. That was the larger increase among all companies in this market.
People are going to do whatever it takes to not get sick, if that means buying a bottle of hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes a week, they are going to do it (at least until the H1N1 virus subsides). If you are a marketing there is no reason why you should not be taking full advantage of this. Especially since we are still in a “recession”, having the biggest sale increase for that market is amazing. For all you green enthusiast who do not want to get sick and do not want to hurt the environment, there is a whole line of environmental friendly disinfectant products. Whatever the case may be, it definitely pays to work with what is out there and target what people are buzzing about.

I don’t think there is a day that goes by where something about Twitter is not being talked about. That’s great for them, but what is it really bringing them as far as money in their pockets? It seems they are still working on long term initiatives that would help them make money off it’s popularity. However, for now they are continuing to come up with ideas that will help the current users make money. In the next few days, they will be rolling out the first phase of educational information for businesses on how they can effectively use Twitter to generate revenue for their own company (big and small). Twitter will continue to roll out educational information so they can help their users become more Twitter savvy with Tweeting. They see their site as a great tool for businesses to use to help generate revenue. Does this mean if they are going to help educate businesses on how to make money, then they must have something planned for themselves on how THEY are going to make money? I hope so!
Twitter is looking to be looked at more like a communication network, versus a social network. They have forecasted that they will have revenues of around 4 billion for the 4th quarter, but I am not sure how they will achieve that with the way the site is currently. Maybe they have something “big” up their sleeves????? Leadpile Lead Exchange uses Twitter on a limited basis, however maybe with some new tools available we could look at using it even more! Are other lead generation companies using Twitter to generate leads? I would be curious to see how affiliate marketers and other lead generation companies are utilizing this “communication network” to help their business?

Phoenix June 30th, 2009 — LeadPile, The World’s Largest Online Exclusive Lead Exchange announced today record results for its MicroClick Form (http://www.microclick.com) in June, 2009. LeadPile reports a record number of Lead Verticals being served by its MicroClick Form with Lead Sellers producing leads in 61 different verticals in the month of June. This makes the LeadPile MicroClick Form the most widely used Multi Vertical Lead Generation Form in the lead Marketplace and Lead Exchange Industry.

LeadPile’s Centralized Online Exclusive Lead Marketplace supports thousands of affiliates that use the exchange to sell to suitable lead buyers. By using the LeadPile MicroClick Form, Affiliates can focus on driving traffic to their pages and not on managing lead buyer relationships. Over 90% of LeadPile’s active affiliates are currently using the MicroClick form, offloading the responsibility for lead collection, management, technology infrastructure, and quality control to LeadPile.

Astoundingly, LeadPile’s MicroClick form has been used to produce leads as diversified as Tax Debt Relief, Home Improvements, Business Loans, Health Insurance, Equipment Leasing, Credit Card Processing, Cash For Gold and more.

Andrew Jacob, CEO of LeadPile says, “The LeadPile MicroClick Form allows us to handle leads across multiple verticals, including payday, starter credit, debt consolidation, credit repair, bankruptcy, auto financing, and homeowner. While the majority of leads currently being exchanged in the  Marketplace are in the Financial sector, the fact that Lead Sellers are using the MicroClick form to produce leads in over 60 verticals is very rewarding for our team.

Jacob adds, “I would like to personally thank our existing Lead Buyers and Leads Sellers for their business, and it is our promise to everything we possible can to help them in their efforts by continuing to provide the type of technology infrastructure and transparency that they have come to both expect, and deserve, from LeadPile.

To read more, please visit http://www.LeadPile.com/